It's a hard time of year for people with claustrophobia, as Dan Piraro of Bizarro Comics illustrates. There are Clauses everywhere and rooms tend to get smaller and air in shorter supply wherever they go.
John Farrier's Blog Posts
(Photo: 20th Century Fox)
Here's a fascinating story from the filming of the 1968 science fiction film Planet of the Apes. In that movie, there are 3 ape species: chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. When the actors for the ape characters put on their makeup and costumes, they segregated themselves by species:
During the filming of Planet of the Apes in 1967, Charlton Heston noted “an instinctive segregation on the set. Not only would the apes eat together, but the chimpanzees ate with the chimpanzees, the gorillas ate with the gorillas, the orangutans ate with the orangutans, and the humans would eat off by themselves. It was quite spooky.”
James Franciscus noticed the same thing filming Beneath the Planet of the Apes in 1969. “During lunch I looked up and realized, ‘My God, here is the universe,’ because at one table were all the orangutans eating, at another table were the apes, and at another table were the humans. The orangutan characters would not eat or mix with the ape characters, and the humans wouldn’t sit down and eat with any one of them.
Read the rest at Futility Closet.
-via American Digest
Smaug from The Hobbit has a fiery breath, but maybe he can put it to good use by lighting this cocktail from The Drunken Moogle. To make your own, you'll need Goldschläger, which is a type of cinnamon-flavored schnapps, Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, a splash of grain alcohol and a bit of flame.
There are now cameras everywhere. So you can't just roll out of bed, put on sweat pants and drive to the McDonald's anymore. There are people there who will judge you. So you have to impress them by putting on a fedora that matches your sweatpants.
We wanted flying cars. We wanted robot girlfriends. This isn't the future that any of us, including Kris Straub of Chainsawsuit, wanted.
(Images: Michelin)
The Michelin Man—the mascot for the Michelin tire company—is a happy, jovial fellow. He’s always been that way, but you may find early photos and illustrations of him scary.
His name is Bibendum. That’s a reference to a line by the Latin poet Horace, who said, “nunc est bibendum.” That means “now is the time to drink.” Michelin did not adopt this phrase in order to promote drunk driving, but to express that Michelin tires eat up obstacles on the road.
He doesn’t anymore, but Bidendum used to drink heavily, smoke cigars and wear pince-nez glasses. He was drawn gray when tires were usually gray in color, then black when tires were commonly black. You can see more early images of him here.
-via Ace of Spades HQ
Redditor sneakylawyer went urban exploring in Ronse, Belgium. He went inside an abandoned building and found several walls covered with beautiful, precisely-executed images from the Batman universe. The unknown artist appeared to be heavily influenced by The Animated Series, Batman Beyond and The Dark Knight trilogy. You can see more photos here.
-via Nerd Approved
Several days ago, we featured Michael Kenny's illustrations of several incarnations of the Doctor as if they had been drawn by Tim Burton. The tumblr blogger Made by ABVH animated 3 of them: the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor and the War Doctor. They only further my argument that Tim Burton and the BBC should make this happen.
-via Super Punch
In case you haven't heard already: the sign language interpreter at the funeral for Nelson Mendela was a fake. He signed pure gibberish. If Thamsanqa Jantjie knows any sign language, he failed to demonstrate it at the funeral.
But perhaps, as this animated .gif (that's pronounced jeeeef) demonstrates, he was actually trying to make balloon animals.
Quantum Leap, episode 273: Sam leaps into the body of a sign language interpreter at Mandela's memorial. "Oh boy."
— Matt Westcott (@gasmanic) December 12, 2013That, or we were just watching an episode of the science fiction show Quantum Leap.
My @SeinfeldToday plot: George tells high school crush he's a sign-language translator; accidentally has to translate Mandela funeral.
— jon gabriel (@exjon) December 12, 2013Or Mr. Jantjie was trying to impress a lady and failing spectacularly.
What we do know is that the signs made no sense at all. Jimmy Kimmel brought a real interperter onto his show, who then translated Mr. Jantjie's gestures.
Should a person in this situation, as Jimmy Kimmel advises, just do the macarena dance? Maybe Mr. Jantjie was trying to start his own dance craze, as this video illustrates.
(via Robb Allen and American Digest)
When the Klingon leader General Martok (who was recently elected to public office in New York) wishes you a merry Christmas, you should at least try to respond in his own language. There's a limit to the Yuletide cheer that the universal translator can express.
Here is Mashable's handy guide to saying "merry Christmas" in 40 languages, including Farsi, Lithuanian and Korean.
Oh, is it cold up north? I didn’t know. You see, where I am in Texas, it’s quite pleasant. Why, I went running in short-sleeves yesterday! Some of you, such as cartoonist Beth Evans, may have to spend too much time scraping ice. I think that I’ll go for a swim instead.
P.S. Be sure to check out our exclusive interview with Beth Evans.
Kat and Cam of Our Nerd Home have a great holiday craft for role-playing gamers. The d20 is obviously the most complex piece and the pair describe it as “a patience-trying project.” It’s hard to get the angles correct and cut out without breaking the graham crackers.
Once you do cut out all the necessary triangles, glue them together using melted white chocolate candy. Make three dome-like structures out of 5 triangles each, then connect them. You’ll probably need an extra set of hands to do this correctly. Then add red frosting for the numbers and roll for initiative.
-via Make
(Photo: @tokai06)
Walk up to the barista and say, "One coffee." That'll be 7 euros. Or say, "One coffee, please." That'll be € 4.25. But if you say, "Hello. One coffee, please" then all you have to pay is € 1.40.
At the Petite Syrah in Nice, France, it pays to display proper gentility. The manager, Fabrice Pepino, started it as a joke after encountering too many customers who dropped their manners when they were in a hurry.
So far, he hasn't had to enforce it. Mr. Pepino says that when customers notice the sign, they slow down and watch what they say.
-via That's Nerdalicious!
We love the funny work of Viktor Hertz, a graphic designer in Stockholm. We've previously featured his honest brand logos and minimalist pictographic song posters. More recently, he made a few jokes with computer progress bar windows. You can view them all here.
So the bartender says, "Why the long wait time?"
-via Ian Brooks
(Photo: Lareina Tan)
Riley, a 3-year old corgi, has new friend. It’s a wild rabbit! Lareina Tan, Riley’s human, says that they met on a walk. She was initially afraid that Riley might hurt the bunny. But all they want to do is play together. The bunny has even waited outside Riley’s house for the dog to come out and play. Ms. Tan says:
The bunny ran around in circles around us instead of away, and jumped onto Ripley's front paw while she was sitting. I want to believe the bunny chose to hang with her.
Riley is quite gentle and, true to his shepherding roots, only nudges him along. You can see more photos here.
-via Ace of Spades HQ
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